The Early Days of ALDA

Presented by Bill Graham

Bill Graham is one of the co-founders of ALDA. He hasn't been deeply involved in ALDA for many years, so it was a special treat to have him speak at this year's Appreciation Luncheon.

For more coverage of this great convention, please point your browser to http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/hlorg/alda/cn/2006/2006.htm

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I really didn't know what to talk about here. So I asked Kathy and Cheryl what I should talk about. And they both advised me to talk about the early days of ALDA. And I would love to do that, except for one thing. I don't remember anything! That was 19 years ago, and another life entirely.

Just kidding!

ALDA's early days remind me of the weather on my wedding day. It rained! But then the sun came out. And that's what ALDA was like to me - a big, beautiful sun after an extended period of rain.

ALDA was and still is all about communications. I wrote about my experiences a few years ago, after Kathy Herring died. There were three of us at the first meeting trying to establish a self-help group. One of us signed - badly. One of us lipread - badly. And one of us did both - badly. We really couldn't communicate, so we decided to have a party!

Thirteen people showed up, and it was a little awkward at first. Then someone pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, and it worked! It doesn't always work with hearing people. But it worked with us! We communicated! So that was the first party.

Back to the self-help group. We decided to give it another go. We had a hearing person type up summaries of our discussions. We used an old typewriter and had three or four carbons. And we'd stop every five minutes or so and pass around the carbon copies, so people could read and know what was being discussed.

And then my friend Steve Wilhelm thought about hooking a computer up to a TV set and having what was typed on the computer show up on the TV. He had to jury-rig some things, but it worked! We called it ALDA-crude. And it worked!

Later I ended up in the office of Jerry Miller, who was the president of the national court reporter's organization. He took me to see a court reporter in action, and I was overwhelmed to see captioning in real time.

We had our first ALDA conference in 1989 at the hospital where Cleo worked. We had several court reporters there, including Marty Block. They tried to do live captioning for the first time. Steve had to jury-rig some more stuff to get it to work. We had a lot of patience back then. The captioners were volunteers, which was good, because ALDA didn't have any money.

In those early days we spent a lot of time with the captioners, and they with us. We even regularly attended each other's conventions.

The second ALDAcon was in 1990 at a hotel! We had captioning on the left side of the room and interpreters on the right side. As the conference progressed, people migrated to the left side, and pretty soon the right side of the room was empty!

Today's captioning is awesome. We see accuracy rates of 97 or 98%. Fifteen years ago we were happy with 60 or 70%.

Every ALDA group has a captioner who is a superhero. Ours was Pat Graves, who came to every meeting and captioned for free, sometimes for hours at a time!

The other foundation of ALDA in the early days was the newsletter. I really admire the people who have managed the newsletter over the years. I was lucky enough to start the newsletter, and it was a great way to stay in touch between meetings.

One story I told was about my wife Karina's nose. We were lying in the sun one day, and I reached over and grabbed her nose. She told me to stop it! I learned that I could understand her better when I held her nose, because I could feel the vibrations. I haven't thought about that story for years, until Cheryl reminded me a couple of weeks ago.

I remember Sister Maureen Conway, who would hug you like she was doing the Heimlich maneuver, and then shake you like crazy. We didn't know whether to be happy to see her or to flee!

I met Marilyn Howe by the pool at one of the court reporter conventions. She was a real dynamo, and she founded the second ALDA chapter in Boston. She also organized the first ALDA karaoke party. That was a very powerful moment for me, to be able to get up and sing some of the songs I remembered from my youth!

I. King Jordan, the president of Gallaudet, came to many of the ALDAcons. He loves them! He couldn't make this one because of the student demonstrations, but he really wishes he could be here.